Labels for Homemade Gifts

Follow Martha's lead to create homemade gifts for everyone on your holiday list.

I always find edible gifts easy to conceive and relatively easy to make. I searched online for pretty jars for honey, lemon curd, and preserved lemons. Using a woodcut I had made for Cantitoe Corners several years ago by Michael McCurdy, I enlisted crafts editor Marcie McGoldrick to fabricate beautiful labels, which include the logo, contents, and date for each of the items. We printed them easily on a home-office printer.

I harvest Cantitoe Corners honey from my hives every autumn. This year, I packaged it in beautiful lidded jars with graphic labels and gilded-paper lid covers. I used waxed twine to hold wooden honey spoons in place. I packaged homemade lemon curd the same way.

I found shapely squarish jars for the honey and the curd and larger French canning jars for the preserved lemons. Smaller labels were made as hang tags for the begonia plants, which I potted in Guy Wolff Pottery planters especially sized for begonias: wide and shallow. I purchased quilted-paper boxes, lined their lids with some shredded paper, and wrapped the plants in shrouds of clear cellophane.

I love propagating rare plants from cuttings and do so often. Many friends ask for homemade specimens of some of my greenhouse plants. They make great gifts when presented in artisanal decorative pots. These were custom made by Guy Wolff Pottery. Style A tags, in Black, $4.90 for 10, paper presentation.com.